Conventionally, in preparing a color document such as a catalogue or a leaflet by applying coloring to a document, as a technique for providing guide information for supporting a user's work of applying coloring to the document, there is, for example, an image output apparatus disclosed in a Patent Document 1 and a document processing apparatus disclosed in a Patent Document 2.
In the invention described in the Patent Document 1, when a user selects a type of a target document out of selection items displayed in a window on a screen on the basis of a type table, image words corresponding to the type of the document are displayed on the basis of an image table. When the user selects a target image word out of the image words, coloring and a typeface corresponding to the image word are determined on the basis of an image coloring conversion table.
The invention described in the Patent Document 2 has a coloring table in which color lists defining combinations of colors to be candidates of staining with respect to sets of components of a document are registered for each image word. All image words and types of all components included in the color lists are retrieved from the coloring table and displayed. When an image word is selected out of the image words by a user, a color list corresponding to the image word selected is retrieved from the coloring table and displayed. The user applies coloring to a document on the basis of the color list displayed.
[Patent Document 1] JP-A-8-305822
[Patent Document 2] JP-A-8-55119
However, in both the inventions described in the Patent Document 1 and the Patent Document 2, when the user selects an image word, coloring candidates corresponding to the image word are displayed. Thus, there is a problem in that, when an image supposed by the user and an image of the image word selected do not coincide with each other, it is difficult to realize coloring that matches the colors imaged by the user. For example, it is possible to use an image word “cold” to represent comfortable coldness and to represent a sense of unapproachable cool-headedness. When a system adopts “cold” as a word representing one image and defines coloring candidates in association with the image word, if the user selects the image word “cold” supposing the other image, coloring candidates different from the colors imaged by the user are displayed.
It may be impossible to represent the image supposed by the user in words. In such a case, it is difficult to realize coloring that matches the colors imaged by the user.
Therefore, the invention has been devised in view of the unsolved problems of such conventional techniques and it is an object of the invention to provide a coloring support system, a coloring support program, and a storage medium as well as a coloring support method that are suitable for realizing coloring that matches colors imaged by a user.